Charles Darwin in a letterJoseph D. Hooker in February 1871 speculated that life might have originated in “some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, &c., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes”. The search for the origin of life continues.

Wolfe-Simon’s pending announcement of a recent discovery was touted as the first time in the history of biology that an organism has been found to use a different element to build one of its most basic structures.

The announcement seized immediate media attention. The NASA media advisory on November 29 stated: “NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.”

The media expected an announcement for the discovery of extraterrestrial life—a decades long NASA goal. MSNBC primetime news claimed that scientists that have discovered “life as we do not know it”. The paper appeared in the December 2nd issue of “Science Express” and is slated for publication in the journal Science.

The Wall Street Journalreported that “[s]o great was the media stampede that even the White House and members of Congress were calling on NASA to clarify. Even a Nature news article suggests “you can potentially cross phosphorus off the list of elements required for life.”

At first, the controversy over NASA’s arsenic-loving bugs centered on whether the space agency had found astrobiological evidence for aliens. Since then, the debate has ping-ponged the other way, with scientists questioning whether the bacteria even love arsenic at all.

A sampling of opinions –

Premature – Scientific American‘s Alla Katsnelson says the findings NASA released last week were incomplete and at times contradictory. Dubious to begin with, the results of the study were “communicated to non-specialists” in a slapdash manner that suggested a “new chemistry of life” had been discovered, a claim that was “at best premature.” Katsnelson notes the study fails to identify any compounds containing arsenic, a glaring oversight considering “the team could have directly confirmed or disproved the presence of arsenic in the DNA or RNA using targeted mass spectrometry.” The researchers also ignore indications in their own data that, rather than building biomolecules, the bacterium are “simply absorbing and isolating arsenate while making use of the trace phosphates in its environments.”

Very Flawed – Carl Zimmer at Slate blames the researchers for failing to take “basic precautions to avoid misleading results … when the NASA scientists took the DNA out of the bacteria, for example, they ought to have taken extra steps to wash away any other kinds of molecules. Without these precautions, arsenic could have simply glommed to the DNA, like gum on a shoe.” The title of Zimmers article was “This Paper Should Not Have Been Published“.

Nonsense – University of British Columbia microbiology professor Rosie Redfield eviscerates the paper in a detailed review posted to her research blog. “Basically,” she writes, “[the paper] doesn’t present ANY convincing evidence that arsenic has been incorporated into DNA (or any other biological molecule).” What it does offer is “lots of flim-flam … if this data was presented by a PhD student at their committee meeting, I’d send them back.”

Nothing New – Paul Davies of NASA and Arizona State University admits the bacterium is not a new life form: “It can grow with either phosphorous or arsenic. That makes it very peculiar, though it falls short of being some form of truly ‘alien’ life belonging to a different tree of life with a separate origin.” to the bench to do more cleanup and controls.”

Media’s Fault – Discover‘s Jennifer Welsh blames the press for misrepresenting the nature of the study featuring the “incredibly misleading article” published on The Huffington Post entitled – “NASA Announcement LIVE: New Life Form Discovered (VIDEO)”.

Plenty of Blame – The Guardian‘s Martin Robbins suggests, to treat the whole thing as a cautionary tale, “a story of everything that’s wrong about the relationship between science, peer review, the world of publishing, and the mainstream and independent branches of the media in 2010.”

The government supported evolution industry, driven by a dying paradigm in the disparate pursuit to find Darwin’s “little pond” for the origins of life, is found pressured into “shooting itself in the foot”, once again. NASA hallucinations on arsenic are reminiscent of England’s infamous Piltdown man fiasco circulated nearly 100 years ago.

20 Responses to “NASA Hallucinations on Arsenic”

[…] entitled “A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus“, NASA released the upcoming news media alert – NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2 [2010], to discuss an […]

Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after looking at a few of the articles
I realized it’s new to me. Anyhow, I’m certainly delighted I
stumbled upon it and I’ll be book-marking it and checking back regularly!

Have you ever thought about publishing an ebook or guest authoring on other
sites? I have a blog based on the same subjects you discuss and would love to have you share some stories/information. I know
my visitors would value your work. If you’re even remotely
interested, feel free to send me an e mail.

Good day very cool web site!! Man .. Excellent .. Superb ..
I’ll bookmark your website and take the feeds also? I’m happy
to seek out numerous helpful information right here in the submit, we want work out more techniques on this regard,
thanks for sharing. . . . . .

I’m really enjoying the design and layout of your blog.
It’s a very easy on the eyes which makes it much more enjoyable for me to come here
and visit more often. Did you hire out a designer to create your theme?
Great work!

That is really attention-grabbing, You’re an excessively skilled blogger.
I have joined your feed and stay up for in search of extra of your
excellent post. Additionally, I have shared your
website in my social networks

Leave a Reply

Darwin, Then and Now is a journey through the most amazing story in the history of science - the history of evolution. The book encapsulates who Darwin was, what he said, and what scientists have discovered since the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859.

With over 1,000 references, Darwin Then and Now is a historical chronicle of the rise and fall of the once popular theory of biological evolution.